barbaloot – This lovely little puzzle game starts out innocent enough. But soon you’ll find yourself facing frustrating, though endearing, puzzles that may make you pull your hair out. There are a ton of levels, that range from simple to devious, and I believe they’re consistent across all platforms. It and it’s sequel are currently on Steam, so I would check it out.

Dead Rising

Barbaloot – Goofy meets serious in this obvious homage to Dawn of the Dead. As reporter Frank West, it is your job to helicopter yourself into the violent territory of Willamette and find out what’s going on. The tone of this game is a constant whiplash, moving from ridiculous weapons, moves, and characters, to serious plot elements and story. But don’t be fooled, it blends together very well. While you could just mow down zombies to your heart’s content, using a variety of items from full out guns to potted plants, skateboards, and nerf launchers, there are other goals for you to accomplish. Being a reporter, it is your duty to get to the bottom of what is going on, and spread it to the world, and these clues are linked to time-sensitive missions that must be completed before a certain time. Everything in this game is time sensitive, really, and it may be hard for you to rescue everyone and still complete the main questline. I personally find that part of the fun, as finding good routes and getting better weaponry largely reduce the amount of lost quests. Overall, an extremely solid game that’s both fun to finish the story of, and just mess around in.

Deus Ex

Refia – Has one of the best stories I’ve seen in a game. Political intrigue and conspiracies abound in this game, and the writing is so good that it is still relevant today. There’s things in this game that look like they’re written about the Trump era of America even though the game came out in 2000 (and they predicted the Twin Towers being destroyed ahead of time!!!). The combat is good, the augmentations you get are cool, and it’s basically as much of an RPG as a shooter can get, since if you don’t level up your weapon skills you will be pretty inaccurate, so you have to choose what guns you want to be a specialist in (or just be kinda average at them all!). Very cool game and I still play through it every now and then.

Diablo 2

Barbaloot – The sequel to the dated but still very good Diablo, Diablo 2 kicks it up several notches. More streamlined quests make the story easier to follow, and rewards more consistent. each area is very large now, so whereas the first game’s length was mostly to difficulty, this one’s length has more to do with content. And the loot is overall improved too. Now you have amazing things like Set items (items that gain bonuses the more of a set you wear) , items that heavily improve specific classes, items with slots in them to put various trinkets into like gems and runes. All kinds of goodies here. And let’s not forget the classes. The original had 3 basic archetypes that more or less could tread on the tactical space of the other classes with ease. In this game, there’s 7 classes (with DLC). Your Barbarian fights. Your Sorcerer casts spells. Your Paladin gives area buffs. Necromancer likes to make new friends. And they all feel very distinct without bleeding into other classes, due to the new tech tree system. Overall, an excellent game you’ll spend hours (days? YEARS?) on.

Divekick

Barbaloot – Who ever has looked at a fighting game and thought “this is far too complex for me. i wish there was something much simpler.” Well, friend, Divekick is for you. Everything in Divekick is done through two buttons, a gimmick that feels like it would get old fast if it wasn’t so well designed. The game basically boils down to spacing and angles. It couldn’t get too much simpler. The whole game is a deconstruction and satire of fighting game culture, so expect to see a healthy spattering of memes and references throughout. Don’t let that deter you though, the game still has plenty of depth to go around. Not to mention it’s simple but charming artwork, and very good ost, and I think you’ll be falling in love in no time.

Half-Life 2

gamma – Much better than I thought it would be, but I still think it gets more praise than it deserves. I actually played a few years ago and quit at Water Hazard because the game felt boring and tedious, so if not for Game of the Month, I wouldn’t have seen the rest. My rating here is mostly influenced by the enjoyable gameplay, the various weapons that were surprisingly useful, and by my consideration of other FPS titles. Basically, I only liked the gameplay in Half-Life 2. The story was uninteresting and generic, especially due to the dystopian themes that I rarely like; I hear people talk about the great atmosphere, but I only experienced that in the “Our Benefactors” chapter–most of the game seemed empty and drawn-out. Despite these complaints, the action-filled moments came together nicely as I looked back on them.

Yoshi This was one of the best FPS games I’ve ever played, though I’m not at all a fan of the genre. I played Half-Life 1 before this and I gotta say what these games did were incredibly revolutionary for their time. I thought some Chapters went on a little too long, but was very fun nonetheless and I can’t think of any parts that I just hated. The story is very, very weak honestly and I feel like they could do SO much more with it. It was good enough though to the point where I will be one of the first to play Half-Life 3 when it eventually comes out. The boat & the buggy were very welcome additions to break up the walking around, and along with Ravenholm were probably my favorite parts. The aspect of this game that truly struck me as the most amazing was that you really had to conserve your ammo to get through it; this gave the game a much more realistic feel and was a nice break from the usual “shoot everything endlessly forever” problem that plagues the entire FPS genre. Half-Life 2 will forever hold (deservedly so) an important place in gaming history.

OFF

barbaloot – Earthbound meets Silent Hill. And no, that isn’t a joke, that’s literally what it’s built to be. This incredibly quirky and slightly unsettling French RPG might be short (about 4-5 hours), but is packed full of charm in every little corner. It’s battle system is rather plain, so don’t expect too much depth from it, but everything else about the game is easy to fall in love with, especially it’s characters. And not to mention it’s soundtrack, which is honestly one of my favorite in the whole genre. And overall wonderful little experience worth trying out, especially since it’s free!